Begin Here...

“How did you become a Storyteller?” I have told this story many times. Today, I will tell it again. Let me ‘begin here’, with the untold origin story from my diary.

November 2011.

My memory maybe playing tricks on me, but I think that’s when things took a turn. I was in Jamshedpur nursing, burping, cleaning, soothing my 2 month old V. Someone from my team messaged me. “We have a new Producer on the team. S has joined us. Do you know anything?” Obviously I didn’t! Until then I was part of all hirings in my team. When people had to be moved, or let go, when we screened new comers, to hunting for producers with special skills and experience, I had the first eyes on the CV and then the person. On most occasions, my executive producer and I did most of the talking during the final interviews. The interviewee sat through smiling, nodding, agreeing as intelligently as possible. I think that was our cue to hire or no! So when the news of the new producer popped up on my Blackberry, I looked away.

I couldn’t do anything about it, anyway. I was more than 2500 kms away.

I must have had to clean a soiled nappy. Or maybe, I was excited for the new events in my life.

Boimela (bookfair) was in town. I hadn’t visited my childhood playground in more than a decade. Back in my hometown, living the slow, restive and (yet) tumultuous life of a new mother, I was looking for parts of my childhood that I cherished. Strangely, my hectic & hustling life as television producer gave me no room enjoy the simple things in life. So when motherhood slowed me down, I was looking for ways to make it memorable. I was looking forward to visiting the book fair. During my maternity leave, I had picked up reading. I began to write too. I still have that handmade paper notebook where I wrote outlines for a book of short stories set in a small town.

I bought books for V. A bunch of board books, the square kinds with pictures and words. Good to build early vocabulary. Then, a bunch of animal based story books. The books were colourful. Sturdy and simple. I had no idea about children’s books. I bought what I could and made the trip back home, to read and sing to my new born.

“Books?!! Already??” asked someone who came to see the baby. “Give him a break! He has an entire life waiting to be surrounded by books!”

“But I won’t be teaching…!” I protested. Why are books for teaching?

“I will tell stories,” I offered. After all, that’s the only thing I had done until then.

“Too early…your baby doesn’t know anything! Don’t be disappointed,” I think the intent was to console me.

Disappointed. The truth is that I was disappointed. Even anxious. I could sense the tension rising inside me. I tried to ignore it. I wanted to pick up the phone, send a message to my boss, call up my super-boss and ask “Isn’t it too early? Why couldn’t you wait for me to get back?”

August 2011, I moved back to my parent’s home in Jamshedpur. My delivery date was about 45 days away. The move was important because here in Noida, Aniruddha and I weren’t sure we could handle the onset of parenthood all by ourselves. Both of us had traveling jobs. While I had stopped mine, Aniruddha had to keep his up. The anxiety of going into labour all alone in a city with no friends and family was extremely worrying! I once dreamt that I had delivered in the newsroom, running between my desk, the PCR and the edit room!

I loved my career in television. It was my entire life! My identity. Being a television producer consumed my days, nights and everything in between. I was nothing and no one outside my work. I didn’t have friends. I didn’t have hobbies. I didn’t have weekends. I had work. Work and more work. And I loved every bit of it!

Now, my days and nights were very different! Sure, I was coping well. I was even enjoying this little break and new routine. On most days it felt like a little diversion. A small distraction. Maybe even a temporary one. A part of my was aching to go back to my job, but then I had begun to see new parts of me in motherhood. For example, how effortlessly my body new how to hold a newborn. How well I understood his baby cooes! How I instinctively knew that it was time for a feed. Or that he prefered to be burped, soothed or even put to sleep.

But did I want to be just a mother? Nah!

The truth is, that we couldn’t afford to. I knew that. If anything at all, I needed this job even more than before. We had more bills to pay. Both of us were new in our careers. We needed to put in the long hours, the travels, the results to rise in our careers for our son. The fire in my belly was changing form and luminescence. From being a storyteller who wanted to change the world through her stories, I suddenly found myself grappling with the ‘life story’ that was changing my world! I desperately wanted to change the outcome of the story that was unfolding before me. They say stress is not good for a new mother. It affects the milk she produces. At that time, I was recovering from a painful abscess in my breast. I was hurting badly. I felt incomplete and lopsided. I didn’t want ‘work’ to stress me out further.

‘I have given everything for my job so far,’ I said to myself. ‘Nothing will change.’ I consoled myself.

I turned towards the story book I bought. Golly the Goat became my new best friend!

And that’s how it started.

First, as a means to divert my mind. To be the best new mom out there! Everyone was already complimenting me on how I was such an expert. I could birth, bathe, feed, burp and put a baby to sleep with a single hand. So now I was geared towards finding something new to do. Something no one had done before. Tell stories and read books to a newborn. Not the usual lullaby ritual that mothers and grandmothers resort to to put a baby to sleep. I turned to dramatised, action-led, fully engaged storytelling for a newborn. I was jumping, crawling, rolling over to get my boy’s attention.

The attention I wanted was no longer mine.

By December things moved swiftly. I was no longer sent scripts to edit. I was still in my nursing leave. Never mind that ‘working from home’, remote work were alien concepts way back in 2011. Despite that, I had continued to work all through my pregnancy and maternity leave. I designed marketing campaigns, spoke to the sales teams, edited and approved scripts and promos well until I went into the delivery. So finally I could rest. This felt like the leave that I needed from work.

And that was worrying me! How long will I do this? I need to get back A.S.A.P. But December and January are too tough for a new baby. At least in Northern India. Let’s wait till February for the weather to open up. I applied for leave without pay. My organisation allowed it happily. They were no hurry to have me back. At other times I would have received a call back! Like the time when my boss called me after I fractured my leg in an office car.

My storytelling with my solo-audience intensified. I found myself make silly-dilly songs. I made a random story about Itsy the spider who wanted to climb a granny’s porch (I still tell that story)! When V learnt to mimic the movement of his hand to Itsy and Twinkle, The Little Star, something clicked inside me. “What’s happening? Did he just copy me?” He had just turned 3 months!

And then, a week later, when he grabbed the book from my hand, the ground literally slipped from under my feet! My baby had not held a rattle until then. He couldn’t hold his milk bottle. Instead, he took the book that was in my hand. And then he (almost) opened it!

I shared this story on my business page in 2020. I continue to recreate the origin story from this moment onwards.

My stories had seeped into that little human.

If this wasn’t magic, what was!

My story changed from there on…

A few months later, when I joined work, I realised no one wanted to talk to me. My own team was uncomfortable. They knew who to take commands from. I didn’t have any to give mine.

I was sure I didn’t want to take any.

I tried. I tried taking appointments. I entered meetings abruptly. Sent one-way text messages. Radio silence.

I didn’t exist for anyone.

I saw it coming. The darkness that comes with the end of a career. My career wiped clean. It shattered my self-worth. My courage to fight. My dreams of a career hard earned. It was the only time that I gave up on a fight. I didn’t have the courage to fight again.

I surrendered. I allowed darkness to engulf me.

I let it tear my identity into shreds. I was a nobody. Just a new mommy!

In that instance, I became one of the millions of women across the world who stepped back into anonymity with motherhood.

I returned home to snuggle up to V. Feel his baby skin on my face. His dimpled smile gave me the attention that I craved for.

I cuddled him closer and began a new story.

‘BEGIN HERE_____ ‘ I said to myself.

This is where my story began…

***

[This post was written during the Ochre Sky Workshop with Natasha Badhwar and Raju Tai]

It is a chapter in my very personal #DiaryofAStoryteller, stories that have shaped me into being a storyteller.

Our prompt was “This is what I did when I couldn't do anything.”